MVE2i

MVE2i 25 February 2026

This release contains 2 years of upgrades and improvements. The main focus has
been improving compatibility, fixing bugs and some new features for admins and
players as well. MVE2i is now compatible with practice-session, start new
multiplayer game, and ofcourse dedicated servers and is compatible across all
436/469 versions of clients and servers.

The release package now contains updated documentation:

• Quickstart.txt - installation/upgrade/troubleshooting -> basic setup
• Manual.html - in depth explanation of various features -> advanced users
• Changelog.html - explains the changes made in each version

Since there is a lot here I have groupped the features, improvements and
bugfixes into their own section.

New Features

• There is a new feature which allows having random gametype and random rule
  selection. If the game mode and rule are both named "Random" then mapvote
  will choose one of the other avaiable options randomly.

• Map overrides can now add mutators for specific maps. For example you can
  run the NoRedeemer on one specific map but have redeemer on all other maps.

• Added a map search feature for the map list. This can be invoked by just
  starting when a map is seleted in the map list or by pressing Ctrl+F then
  after typing by pressing Enter anc Shift+Enter it's possible to navigate
  between next and previous match.

• UrlParameters are now supported by mapvote. This string will be attached to
  the travel string level URL as is. Certain mutators and server actors can
  read this and act upon it for example to load specific settings or enable
  specific options for the gametype.

• Added MainMutatorList and MainServerActors to MVE_Config.ini, here it's now
  possible to add mutators and server actors which would be initialized to
  every gametype. This way commonly used actors and mutators can be grouped
  together and do not need to be copy pasted to every gametype separately
  eliminating configuration duplication.

• Added an ExcludeMutators and ExcludeActors option to each gametype. This way
  it's now possible for specific gametypes to ignore specific actors or
  mutators which are defined in the main list.

• The welcome window can now have a configurable checkbox that players need
  to check. This is part of the welcome screen feature which is enabled with
  bWelcomeWindow=True and the checkbox can be enabled with
  bServerInfoRequiresAccept=True and customized with a custom label by setting
  ServerInfoAcceptLabel to a short message. Players will keep getting the
  welcome window shown until the checkbox is checked. If the player changes
  their name then the checkbox signature will not match and will be re-shown.
  The checkbox can be forced again by server admins by chaning the
  ServerInfoVersion value to invalidate all signatures.

• There is a new experimental feature that allows limiting how often a rule
  can be repeatedly voted. By settings RuleCostMaxAllow=0 and by having
  MapCostPerLoad=3 players need to vote 3 separate rules before they can vote
  the first one again. If the voting player is an admin they will by pass this
  limitation and the map switch is forced as usual.

• The release package now contains a language definition for Notepad++ which
  adds enhanced highlighting to *.ini files. In our experience this helps
  avoiding and spotting mistakes sooner, especialyl since a lot of
  misconfiguration errors in UT99 are silent errors.

• Configuration can now be reloaded when maplist is reloaded. This feature
  needs patched 469d server version to work as it's a new engine feature. This
  allows making changed so MVE_Config.ini using a text editor then reloading
  the map list would apply it to the live server without needing to restart
  the server. This feature is enabled by default but can be disabled using by
  setting bReloadConfigDuringReload=False

Improvements

• There is a new reworked aliases engine inside mapvote which can now
  recursively resolve aliases. So if you like aliases you can now put an alias
  inside an alias.

• Aliases are now resolved for settings, so you can now define an alias and
  use them in settings.

• Map names, player names, mode/rule names can be now copied from the list
  box using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C. I found this to be super useful
  when I want to note down a particular map or a player name.

• In the mapvote window the first or previous option of each list box is now
  automatically selected to reduce the number of clicks needed to vote a map.
  If you only have a single gametype and single rule for example it will be
  automatically selected and players are presented immediately with the list
  of maps.

• The mapvote window is now customized for server admins who are logged in the
  'Vote' button is now replaced with a 'Force Switch' button to reflect the
  dangerous action that is about to happen when pressed.

• Increased screenshot size by a few pixels so that its 128px. If you're
  the dobule GUI scale this will perfectly line up with mip 0 of the texture
  improving screenshot clarity. On default scaling you'll get mip 1 without
  the blurring from texture interpolation.

• Improved the keybinder popup to not be shown again once it was shown once.
  This is part of the welcome screen which is enabled with bWelcomeWindow=True
  So that players who don't want to set a keybind will be left alone.

• Improved the way in which mapvote detects level changes initiated outside
  of mapvote. When this happens the level change is allowed to happen and then
  when the next map loads mapvote will re-apply the mutators and settings of
  the preivous map. This improves compatibility assault and coop gametypes.

• Starting with MVE2i mapvote can cache the map list for each server
  separately. For caching the ServerCodeName is used. So if you're running
  multiple servers and they have different lists, make sure there is a unique
  value for each server. But if all your servers have the same identical map
  lists then use the same ServerCodeName so that the client will share the
  cache between these servers. This value is empty by default and a random
  key is generated on the first time mapvote is launched.

• Added keyboard navigation between the list game/rule/map list boxes. By
  pressing the left and right arrows you can focus on the next/previous panel.

• The mapvote GUI will save the last selected mode and map when closed and
  will try to restore the selection when reopening. This feature can be used
  to re-vote the previously selected map if it did not win or to continue
  browsing the map list where left off.

• Mapvote will auto generate a working default configuration when the config
  file MVE_Config.ini is missing. This is so that mapvote still wakes up in a
  functional state when MVE_Config.ini is lost. This code should only trigger
  if all gametypes are emtpy.

• Improved performance of the map overrides feature

• Skip loading empty aliases, if aliases feature is not used there should be
  no extra load generated by it.

• Changed bOverrideServerPackages to be disable by default. This is a great
  feature but unfortunately it interferes with the expectations of server
  admins when they first set up mapvote. Server admins are know how to set up
  server packages trough UnrealTournament.ini and it's a disruptive change if
  mapvote now suddenly controls them. For simple server setups with not a lot
  of packages it's also simpler that way to skip this feature.

• Improved feedback messages to user commands. For example if someones who is
  not logged in as admin if they try to reload the map list they now get a
  message that tells them they need to log in first.

• When bOverrideServerPackages is enabled MVE2i specific packages will be
  downloaded before others. This better because these need to be downloaded
  regardless of which map/mode is played so it's not a wasted download if the
  map switches while the player is connecting.

• Moved some of the mapvote features to be initialized with a delay to improve
  server load during match startup.

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue which prevented the map list from loading when the game is
  started in the "Start New Multiplayer Game" in game. With these fixes now
  mapvote can be used in every mode you can run UT99 in, dedicated or not,
  multiplayer or pratice session.

• Fixed mapvote initialization in server actor mode. Now mapvote in server
  actor mode is compatible with all mutators and server actors and mapvote
  can be safely used both as server actor or mutator. You can just add mapvote
  as a server actor and vote from any gametype. If you needed this feature
  before, please update to MVE2i as it will be much more stable, fix mutator
  initialization and report any initialization error in the server log file.

• If you are typing a chat message into mapvote then when if the window closes
  the chat is moved to the regular chat and can be continued instead of losing
  the partially typed message.

• The welcome screen is now configured to only show the first time when a
  client joins and the if the welcome screen was shown is not stored in the
  user config instead of just in process memory so that if the game crashes
  and the player rejoins the server, they are not shown the welcome screen
  again. This can be invalidated server side by updating the ServerInfoVersion
  to a different value to force showing updates or news that we made to the
  server in the information screen.

• Fix missing song playback for levels that have no song specified the client
  will no longer play the default menu music regarless if they have an older
  version of the game or a...

MVE2h

• Map list transfer control has been optimized so that clients no longer need
  to load the map list every time a new match starts. This eliminates unwanted
  lag at be beginning of the match or every time a player rejoins. This also
  eliminates unwanted lag when spectating players. Special thanks goes to
  ProAsm here who allowed me to pick his brain on complicated subjects and
  patiently answered all my questions.

• Fixed a bug where random map has always chosen the same map. There is
  also a new random map algorithm which will prefer choosing a map where
  the player count is within the IdealPlayerCount as defined by the mapper.
  At it's core the choice is still random, and the data in maps is not
  reliable but in practice this avoid switching to a 16 player map when there
  are only 2 players and it will also avoid switching to a 2 player map when
  the server has 16 players.

• The bAvoidRandom configuration property has been removed as since MVE2g
  MVE will only ever choose a random map from the current gametype.

• When browsing throught the list of maps, the selected game mode, rule
  and map is saved to disk and restored next time when the map vote client
  opens. On servers with a lot of game modes and maps this will helps players
  to be able to quickly re-vote their last vote or to continue the search for
  the map they want.

• Improved the welcome experience. If a ServerInfoURL is configured then
  bWelcomeWindow can be enabled. This will cause the web page located at
  ServerInfoURL to be shown to newly joining players. If this is enabled then
  on second join a map vote key-binder window will also be shown to players
  who do not have a keybind for map vote.

• Map vote status titles and map list status list box have been adjusted
  to stretch across the whole screen. Thank you Deepu for this contribution.

• MVE now includes protection against lag spikes caused by queries when
  .int files are missing or are misconfigured. This is enabled by default
  but can be disabled with setting bFixMutatorsQueryLagSpikes to false.
  I'm hoping that this will save headaches for server admins, as I have spent
  the last December and January testing and debugging this issue. Special
  thanks goes to Buggie who made me fully understand the problem.

• The bFirstRun configuration property has been removed and can be deleted
  safely from config files.

• The ClientPackage configuration value has been deprecated and will be
  removed. This means you no longer have to manually update it. As long as
  bOverrideServerPackages is enabled MVE will also automatically inject
  the correct version of the package to ServerPackages.

• MVE will now log every time it performs a map switch. If the sever switches
  maps and you don't know why it happened you will now know if it was MVE
  or something else responsible.

• Optimized tagged map list reload to use less jump instructions. We've hit a
  limit at around ~700 tagged maps where the map list reload will trigger the
  infinite loop detection when using map tags. When this happens the maps
  reload will crash. The problem is not fully fixed yet but the optimization
  does help.

• Fix merge multiple map tag entries for same map. Previosly the entries
  overwrote each other, but from now on they will be merged instead.

• Fixed broken support link in the information page.

2g-v1

• NEW FEATURE: Idle time tracking and idle map switch. MVE will keep
  track to see if the server is empty and if its empty for a configurable
  amount of time the MVE will transition into idle state. This adds extra
  logging to let you know at a glance the status of the server.

  [MVE] Map Vote Extended version: MVE2g
  [MVE] Currently idle, has been empty for at least 60 minutes
  [MVE] Server has been empty for 2 hours
  [MVE] Server has been empty for 3 hours
  

  When going to idle mode you have 2 configurable options now, wether you
  want the server to switch to a random or a default map. This can help ensure
  that the server is in a clean state ready for new players. Or if you have a
  hub or welcome map you can have MVE switch to that. All this is configurable
  with the following properties:

  [MVES.MapVote]
  bSwitchToRandomMapOnIdle=True
  bSwitchToDefaultMapOnIdle=False
  ServerIdleAfterMinutes=60
  DefaultMap=DM-Deck16][
  DefaultGameTypeIdx=0

• REVIVED OLD FEATURE: ServerInfoURL can now be used to display a
  basic html page. An example can be found in the www/server-info.html
  this example is provided for you so that you can edit it. To enable this
  feature you need to configure the property:

  [MVES.MapVote]
  ServerInfoURL=http://<<your-http-host>>/pages/server-info.html

  This file needs to be hosted on a public HTTP server. Servers that force
  HTTPS won't work. But if you have redirect server you can put it there.

  For links to work the should start with http:// your browser should
  be able to redirect you to the echivalent https:// site

  The HTML that's supported here is very old and primitive, you cannot use
  CSS or JavaScript and only very basic tags work

• Updated about page. The support link now points to ut99 forum thread.
  I've also added myself to the list of credits.

• Small UI adjustments: screenshots are now slightly bigger. They should be
  128x128 size on 100% GUI scaling. There is slightly more space for map info
  below the screenshots for long map/author names.

• Cleaner startup log. MapVote will now log version when starting up and
  a success message when startup has finished. A succesful startup should be
  relatively cleaner than before. Unsuccessful startups should log errors and
  and diagnostics.

  [MVE] Map Vote Extended version: MVE2g
  [MVE] Successfully loaded map: `AS-Frigate` idx: 0 mode: Assault - Normal
  

2f-v1

• EXPERIMENTAL: New gametype evaluation and setup code. For now everything
  similarly to before. I'm working on new features here but still not decided.

• MVES.MapVote can now be installed as ServerActor instead of Mutator.

• MVE window can always be opened, if data is not loaded it should show a
  loading message with a percentage.

• Corrected the number of maps shown in the MVE popup window title bar.

• Always load client config from same section regardless of package name.
  While this version will still break client configs, from this version on
  the client configs will not reset when the client package is updated.

• Travel variables moved to separate file MVE_Travel.ini, this file is
  rewritten every time a MVE switches to a new map. Having it in separate
  file is cleaner and allows editing config file without accidental
  overwrites while the server is running.

• Automatically set GameName for scoreboard. This is enabled by default
  because it helps keep track of what gametype was loaded. It can be
  overwritten per gametype if needed.

  [MVES.MapVote]
  bAutoSetGameName=True
  CustomGame[0]=(Settings="FragLimit=30,GameName=Awesome Deathmatch")

• Updated MVE_Config with a more practical example:

  • Added example logo texture
  • Added premade example to MVE_Config.ini
  • Added example gametype configurations

• Sort and deduplicate scanned maps.

  • Can be skipped for faster reloads
  • Map names will be sorted alphabetically (not case sensitive)
  • Duplicate entries if found are removed
  • Premade lists not affected, they stay as defined in config

• INI option to reload, fullscan, saveconfig on next run. These options can be
  useful when editing the configuration. I've been using bReloadOnEveryRun
  whenever I'm working on the map reload & filtering logic. Removed
  bFirstRun, instead bSaveConfigOnNextRun=True can be used.

  [MVES.MapVote]
  bReloadOnEveryRun=True
  bReloadOnNextRun=False
  bSaveConfigOnNextRun=False
  bFullscanOnNextRun=False

• Fallback for players without watcher. In case players are not part of the
  voter list, they get added when they try to access mapvote screen.

• Tweaked player detector, now checks for valid player name.

• Changed the server code name to UT-Server, when adding as "none" we need to
  use command for reloading MVE, admins can open the window and possible to
  reload.

• Map cooldowns check on server side, cannot be bypassed with mutate command.

• Remove version from info tab.

• Optimized map list transfer. If you have a lot of gametypes the map list
  should load a bit faster than before.

• Map string validaton returns reason for which the maps string is not valid

• Improved error messages when map list not loaded.

⚠ Known Issues

• Maps that are on cooldown are not shown in red.

• Map listing still has some bugs, occasionally you can see duplicates maps.

• Map list might fail to load on first try, but it always works on second try.

2e-v3

Extended countdown until first vote

Sometimes when a match ends people start talking chatting or just need a few seconds of break. Because of this
a lot of time we ended up not voting and getting a random gametype with random map.

In order for players to have extra time the voting time window will now be extended by an extra VoteTimeLimit seconds until the first vote is received. When the first vote is received there are VoteTimeLimit seconds until the map switch. So if players are decided and vote fast, there is no extra delay.

Reset voting if a voted map failed to load.

I've implemented a check, before loading a map MVE will test if the map can be loaded.
If the map cannot be loaded then the voting will be reset.

Instead of a server crash, players are given a chance to vote for another map.

Reset assault game on every map switch

Previosly assault game was only reset at the end of the 2nd round of an Assault game,
because of this if mid-game voting was started it was possible to not have a correctly
reset Assault game. This fixes that by applying the assault reset every time MVE switches to a new map.

Fullscan - new admin command

There is as new admin command called fullscan. This is same as a reload but
MapVote will test every map to see if they can be loaded. This can be used
to track down maps that have missing packages. This is meant as a helper
tool for admins to batch verify that the maps have been correctly installed.

Command:

mutate bdbmapvote fullscan

Check the server logs for output, you'll see a huge list of scanned maps:

...
[MVE] Scan `MH-WaterGodTemple.unr`: OK!
[MVE] Scan `MH-Wolf3Dv4.unr`: OK!
[MVE] Scan `MH-ZenithCity.unr`: OK!
Failed to load "MonsterMatch": Can't find file for package "MonsterMatch"..
Failed to load "MM-SpireVillage": Can't find file for package "MonsterMatch"..
Failed to load "PlayerStart unr.PlayerStart0": Can't find file for package "MonsterMatch"..
[MVE] Scan `MM-SpireVillage.unr`: failed to load! Skipping maps that fail to load!
[MVE] Scan `Morose.unr`: OK!
...

Restore last voted map

When MapVote starts up it will now perform a check to see what the current map is
and if its not the map that was voted then it will instantly switch to the voted map.

This enhancement aims to ensure that the correct map with the correct gametype and
all the necessary packages are loaded. It also helps a lot when you're testing a setup
since because of this you can tweak the config and when you restart the same server
you get the same map and gametype when it was turned off.

When this feature kicks in it looks like the following:

[MVE] PostBeginPlay!.
[MVE] ServerPackages are correctly set up!.
[MVE] Current map `DM-NRMC-Trident-v3` does not match the travel map `DM-NRMC-OutreachIV`.
[MVE] Will attempt to switch to `DM-NRMC-OutreachIV`.
[MVE] Goto `DM-NRMC-OutreachIV:54`` TryCount: `1`.
[MVE] -> TravelString: `DM-NRMC-OutreachIV?Game=Botpack.DeathMatchPlus`.
[MVE] -> GameIdx: `54`.
[MVE] 3 map override rules were loaded!.
[MVE] -> ServerPackages: `("SoldierSkins","CommandoSkins","FCommandoSkins","SGirlSkins","BossSkins","Botpack","multimesh","epiccustommodels","tcowmeshskins","tnalimeshskins","tskmskins","SkeletalChars","SkeletalCharsFix313","fnn166","BP1H166","BP4H166","SBU3","UP2","fsb21","UTChat22e","IntroCUT99.uax","FFNLogoTexV3","UTSAccuBeta4_2_9","SendTo_v07c","FastCap","ClassicCrotchshotv1_1","CountryFlags3ffn","MVE2e","cache-mvss-l56ip47a","FFNLogoTexV3")`.
[MVE] -> TickRate: `65`.

In case something goes wrong, the restore will be retried 3 times after which it will stop trying.

Map list summary and error detection on reload

The stats printed at the end of a reload has been improved. From now MVE will print the number
of scanned maps, the number of maps that have been matched by filters and the number
of active gametypes. If any of these values are off, advice is given.

This is meant to help admins have a better understanding of what's happening and to
easier debug if something went wrong.

mutate bdbmapvote reload

[MVE] Scanning all map files, this might take a while
[MVE] Remove old + add new maps...
[MVE] Checking premade lists...
[MVE] Matched 0 maps to 0 gametypes from 1 scanned maps.
[MVE]
[MVE] [ERROR] No maps were loaded!
[MVE]
[MVE] [ERROR] No gametypes were detected!
[MVE]
[MVE] -> enabled gametypes with `bEnabled=True`
[MVE] -> make sure the gametype's VotePriority > 0
[MVE] -> the gametype's GameClass, GameName, RuleName must not be empty
[MVE]
[MVE]
[MVE] [WARNING] Unusually low number of maps were found on filesystem!
[MVE]
[MVE] -> make sure you have maps in your map folders
[MVE] -> verify map folders is are to Paths `Paths=../Maps/*.unr`
[MVE]
[MVE] Map list has been reloaded, check results in the `MVE_MapList.ini

Update defaults and examples

The game config defaults and examples were updated to have VotePriority defaulted to 1.0
Having VotePriority set to 0.0 disables the gametype. This can be super confusing and frustrating to debug
if you don't know about the VotePriority.

2e-v2

Fixes bug when players vote the incorrect game-type was printed in chat.

2e-v1

Green background for players that voted

Players that vote receive a green background. This was a broken feature.
Players did receive the green background but only when mapvote window
opens. Now with the fixes applied the player background should switch to
green as soon as they vote.

Logo Texture

A logo texture can now be configured and shown. The mapvote will instruct
all windows to show this texture initially before players select a map.

Example:

[MVES.MapVote]
ClientLogoTexture=Botpack.ASMDAlt_a00

Fixes & Other

• fixed some typos in some string messages
• when trying to vote the same map you get a prettier message
• cleaned up what remained of gametypes 100+, this fixes a bunch of error logs on client side
• improved loading and display of level information
• logo/screenshot displayed will respect the aspect ratio of the texture instead of stretching it across a rectangle

2d-v1

Reduced gametype count to 100

• this improves peformance
• this was the supported count in MVE2c as well, using gametypes 100-511 broke MVES
• I manually tested gametype slot 99 and works just fine!

Simplified New Maps list

• only shows each new map once! this way it's indeed a map list and it's easier to understand what it is
• voting it will vote the first gametype the map is used in
  • if you want another gametype you'll have to search for the map under that specific gametype
• text only shows mapname without the gametype prefix

2c-v3

• hotfix map history array access

2c v2

• fix issues.
• finally return lost changes.
• clear defaults.